


Tumbleweed Tunes

by Sweaters (Guhs)



Series: Pale Danvivor [4]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: ;), Country Music, Developing Relationship, Don't Worry About It, Don't come for me comfort me, Fluff and Humor, Friendship/Love, Handyman fetish, I'm still not good at tagging, Is that a thing, Light-Hearted, M/M, Minor(?) swearing, Not Beta Read, Oily Boy, Paladin Dance, You might like this one @HowRis ;))), yeah that's intentional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 23:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17969951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guhs/pseuds/Sweaters
Summary: A new radio station shows up on the airwaves.Step 1: Be DanseStep 2: Listen to country musicStep 3: ???Step 4: Profit





	Tumbleweed Tunes

Sanctuary: a place of the past, harkening back to the quiet, idyllic lives of the suburban middle-class in a society at the height of its modern potential. Warm air blew through the trees, the sun-baked soil of the Commonwealth heated from below, muted gunshots traveled on the breeze. Truly a peaceful place, if one allowed it to be.

“ _ Don’t touch the fucking radio, you crusty  _ **_bitch_ ** _! _ ”  
“ _ Bite me, shitdick! _ ”

Well… mostly, anyway.

Tensions were high lately. It was the hottest month of the summer, and everyone was chipping in on some renovations to some of the other houses. After people were repeatedly woken up by the sound of animalistic, ball-slapping sex in the main house, it was an executive decision unanimously agreed on that they might all benefit from more evenly separated living spaces.  
The two main sources of joy in this time of strife? Water, and the radio. So far both had already caused brawls to break out.

Climbing down from his brief resting place at the top of the monkey bars, Nate decided to wander down yonder and have a little look-see, determine whether or not he couldn’t help iron out whatever was going on this time.

“If you keep changing the station, I swear to God I will rip off your head and shit down your neck, Daniel!”  
“Oh yeah? Watch me!”  _ Punch _ .

And there they were. Two grown men, brothers no less, halfway to the floor wrestling for rights to a little electronic box as it crooned the hits as chosen by Diamond City. 

“What’s going on, guys?”

Now, Nate never considered himself a ruler. To him, Sanctuary was just a safe place to start rebuilding from the rubble of the wasteland. He didn’t run it, he wasn’t the mayor, the sheriff, the local president, he just helped keep it going. Everyone seemed to treat him like the local authority all the same. As such, the pair halted the physical portion of their altercation as soon as the pre-war relic approached them.

“This dumb  **_fuck!_ ** won’t leave the radio alone because he heard some ‘new station’ or some bullshit.”  
“It was a good-”  
“Nobody cares! Everyone just wants Diamond City Radio, not that yee-haw Yankee-doodle doo bullshit you were looking for.”  
“Hey, fuck you! Maybe people would like that ‘yee-haw Yankee-doodle-doo bullshit’ if anyone had the chance to listen to it!”  _ Punch _ .  
And so began another fight. A nice crowd had gathered by this point; Nate could tell they were just in it to see some blood, and he wasn’t going to have that in this settlement. There was a time and a place, and here and now were neither.

“Guys- guys! Alright, here’s my solution.” The fighting paused, if only for everyone to absorb whatever sage old-world wisdom was slated to be bestowed upon them. Nate picked the radio up. “I’m taking this, and when I get back, I hope you two will be mature enough to come up with a reasonable compromise.”

And that was that. Nobody wanted to go against Nate’s perceived authority, and he supposed he was sort of abusing that power right now. As soon as he started walking off with the radio, nearly everyone laid into the pair for losing them their music. Nate just  _ loved  _ getting to flex his parenting muscles.

Twenty minutes, thirty max. He wanted a peaceful community, but he wasn’t going to turn into a dictator to achieve it.

The sound of clanging and metalwork drew Nate straight to his house. Well - his house before the war, anyway. It had taken the better part of a year to be comfortable with going in and cleaning it out, with reliving all of his old memories and getting rid of the broken reminders of his past, but he eventually managed it. The carport-turned-garage now housed a new power armor station and a weapons workbench, plus a myriad of storage. That was where he now found Danse, and oh, could he stand there and watch the man work forever.

Alas, the radio under his arm continued loudly inquiring about riding a rocket sixty-nine, and the Paladin spotted him in the doorway almost immediately.

Danse covered in oil and shiny with sweat had quickly become one of Nate’s favorite variations of the man. Lucky for him, the Paladin seemed more interested in keeping his power armor maintained than sleeping normal hours or eating proper food.

“Working hard, or hardly working?”  
“I always give one-hundred percent to my duties and responsibilities.”  
“Turn of phrase. But good to know.”

Danse had been much more available these past few weeks. Smiling more, calling people by rank a lot less. Nate sometimes felt like he’d finally cracked the code to the enigma that was the oily flight suit-clad man before him, who had just cracked a sheepish smile. A new spin on a beloved classic.

“Right. Sometimes I forget the old world was so hyperbolic.” He gestured to the radio, beginning to cut down a sheet of steel at the workbench. “Something the matter with that?”  
“Oh, no. Daniel and Tyler were fighting over it again. I’m giving the boys a little time-out.” Nate sat the radio down on the bench to the side of Danse, punctuating the action with a little  _ pat pat _ . This earned a rare chuckle out of the tin man.  
“What was the fight about this time?”  
“The music. Apparently, they have different tastes. They did say something about a new station though, let me see…” Propping himself up against the side of the workbench, Nate took to fiddling with the left knob.  _ Static. Static. Guit- static. Indistinct screaming. Static. Guita- guitar _ . A little more playing with the rabbit ears and the transmission gradually came through loud and clear. Twangy country music, mostly comprised of guitar, a backing banjo, and some fiddle work.

He hadn’t noticed Danse pause as the music rose.  
“Ohh. This is what Tyler was talking about. ‘Yee-haw bullshit’. Huh.”

“I love this kind of music.”  
Wait… love? Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel  _ loved  _ something?

“You love… country music?”

“You sound surprised.” The duties that Danse gave one-hundred percent to seemed to have been put on the back burner for the time being, and when he swiveled toward the music, toward Nate, he looked almost… serene? Nate had never seen that expression before.

“I guess I just never imagined music and… well, you. Seems like it’d be an unnecessary distraction.”

“I suppose it has been lately. That’s a fair assumption. Sometimes it’s easy, even for me, to forget that I was a regular man before I was a soldier.” His fingers started drumming lightly against the workbench, his gaze into the radio seemed sort of wistful. “Back in the Capital, back when I was a scrapper, I found this old holotape in the rubble of a house. There were about half a dozen songs on it - country-western and bluegrass. The quality was awful, but I had never heard anything like it. Back then, all we had was the Enclave Radio. This was before GNR came around. It was just… amazing. So full of life and energy. So rich. So  _ vibrant _ . I think I must have listened to those same six songs thousands of times before it finally wore out and stopped playing.”

_ God, that’s adorable. _

The Paladin seemed to realize what he’d done, his face flushing the smallest amount. “... Anyway. I apologize, you didn’t ask for my life story. It just kind of… came out. I should keep working-”  
“No, it’s nice. I’m always interested in hearing about your past. It’s hard to learn about you on my own.”  
“That’s… true, I suppose. I guess I’ve just tried to put that part of my life behind me for so long that it doesn’t feel like ‘me’ anymore. It’s not relevant to my role as a soldier.” Danse shrugged after a moment, reached to turn the radio off. Nate grabbed his hand at the last second. If he was being honest, the music was kind of growing on him.  
“I’d say it’s relevant, Danse. That’s a part of who you are.” A pause, then their hands quickly separated.  _ Whoops _ . “Uh, anyway - here. Let me show you something.” He turned up the music and pushed off the workbench. “Do you dance?”  
“Do I… dance.” It looked like he may have gotten this often. “You may be surprised when I say ‘absolutely not’. It’s not-”  
“Oh, I don’t care if it’s useful or relevant. Come on, you’re allowed to have some fun.”

Nate stood in the center of the little enclosed lean-to, hand held out.

“Nathan, I really don’t think-” But it was too late. Nate had already reached out, secured one of the tin man’s hands, and pulled him in. The rhythm of the song was just about perfect.

Nate shuffled them into place, gradually. “Okay, normally this is done with about six people but I think we can manage just fine.” He waited for a cue in the music and started moving - amid countless objections from Mr. Metal himself. Nate had never seen such a red face, and he wasn’t going to give it up that easily. 

Nate’s earlier proclamations of being a bad dancer? Yeah, that hadn’t changed one bit in two-hundred plus years.

“So we go this way, I stand on this side… no, wait, this side - okay, that seems right. Then move, move, spin - shit you’re tall - then I spin, give me your hands. Yeah! Okay. Sides together, a _ round _ and around-”  _ Bang!  _ against some debris on the floor, a slight stumble. “Ow! No, don’t worry about that. Now we go this way…”  
The tin man and the two left feet. Amazingly, the only thing that kept Nate from constantly tripping was the man who spent most of his time in an inarticulate metal suit of armor. What the man lacked in grace he surely made up for in leadership skills and a pure iron grip. Nate would probably have bruises on his hands tomorrow.

They were as clumsy and clueless as one might expect, bumping into each other, stepping on each other’s feet, kicking each other, spinning a little too vigorously and hitting something  _ again  _ or going out of bounds and having to regroup. Danse was having an easier time of it, but not by much. They both looked so  _ lost _ , but that was really half the fun of it.

“Alright, now we spin again, and-”  **_Crash!_ ** half-stifled shout slash yelp. The two of them ended up crumpled on the concrete floor, awkwardly twisted one under the other. The responsible errant parts bucket rolled away conspiratorially as strewn out bolts, screws and other small pieces spun and clattered around them. Danse had the bad luck to land flat on his back, catching Nate disjointedly on top of and beside him - their limbs were a whole tangled mess. 

“Ow, ow, ow ow shit. Are you okay, Danse? Damn it, I should’ve known I was still too clu-” Laughter cut Nate’s fussing short. Deep, resounding laughter, forceful enough to make both of their bodies shake just so with the rhythm. Nate’s elbow and knee had taken a walloping when they landed, and Danse must have hit his head something fierce by the way he was cradling it with one hand, but he was  _ laughing _ . Then, so was Nate, despite being the one responsible for sending them crashing in the first place.

They couldn’t pinpoint how long it went on, just that they both needed to catch their breath by the end of it. When they did, the smile on Danse’s face when he looked over at his companion was nothing short of  _ radiant _ . Like something of pure joy.

“You weren’t kidding when you said you were an awful dancer.”  
Nate, propped up to the side on his good elbow, smacked Danse’s arm.  
“Can it, tin man. You loved that.”  
“Yes, I did.”

Guitar and fiddle still warbling in the background, the two held eye contact for a moment. Neither knew who started it, all they knew was that their lips had suddenly connected, and they didn’t hate it.  _ Really  _ didn’t hate it. The taste of Nuka Cherry, the taste of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, the smell of sweat, the smell of oil, chapped lips, soft lips, scruffy beard, softer face. Nate’s brain was in overdrive.

_ Fuck oxygen _ was Nate’s first thought when they pulled apart with a collective gasp of breath. He was starstruck, tunnel-visioned, couldn’t quite collect his thoughts. And he couldn’t read Danse whatsoever: doe-eyed, blank, a little out of breath still, completely incomprehensible, staring at Nate with a kind of darkness in his eyes that elicited a dangerous response from Nate.  
He wanted to say something. Couldn’t formulate it.

_ SLAM _ . “Nate!” Heavy footsteps pounded through the main room of the house. Nate got up faster than he probably ever had, and lucky for him, there wasn’t enough blood flowing to his brain to make him remotely lightheaded. He’d only just managed to turn the radio off before Tyler stormed into the carport. He didn’t seem to take note of Danse quietly collecting himself off the ground.

“Nate, I know you said we’re taking a time-out or whatever, but- … Are you okay?” Nate could only imagine how flustered he must have looked, how out of breath and ruffled. With all the authority granted to a bobblehead, he nodded.  
“Hard at work.” At least partially true.  
“... Huh, okay. Well, Daniel and I came up with a compromise. I know it hasn’t been long but if we don’t get some music out there, there’s going to be a mutiny.”  
“Sounds good.” Nate grabbed the radio, handed it over, and that was that. Tyler didn’t take another second of his time.

Nate had to check his pulse to make sure he was still alive. Every time he glanced over at Danse, now lingering by the tool chest not an arm’s length away, that heart rate spiked drastically. This man might actually be the death of him. “I-I guess I should get back to work; don’t want to set a bad example.” Danse nodded. He seemed… maybe a little stunned? The silence was unnerving, but Nate mirrored the nod and turned to leave.

“Hey, Nathan?”  
Nate paused, turned back.  
“Yeah-” Their lips met again. There was much more hesitation this time, almost like they were doing something wrong, but everything in Nate’s body was glad to report that it was  _ very  _ **_right_ ** . It didn’t last long, just a glorified peck, but that didn’t matter. Just seeing the way Danse’s lips pressed together afterward, the pink tongue that creeped out over them, that shock of color through his cheeks and neck… Nothing short of perfection.

“Maybe we can try dancing again sometime.”  
“Careful what you wish for, tin man.”

It took a minute to finally convince himself to leave, but Nate headed off back to work, spurred on by that new, complex fire in the pit of his stomach.

**Author's Note:**

> You know I had to do it to 'em.
> 
> I didn't put any tags for this because I didn't want to give away the surprise because it even shocked me that I decided to make this the chapter that it happens in lmao.  
> Also I edited this in the parking lot of an empty restaurant in my car because I needed WiFi and it's 1:30 in the morning so don't @ me if it's trash, it usually is lmao
> 
> Also credit goes to Brandoman, the author of the mod responsible for inspiring this.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed ;)))) if not, I'm sure you can find someone else in this tag who tickles your particular fancy
> 
> Well, time to drive home I guess lmao deuces


End file.
